Academics

Classics 298. Experimental Courses

Archaeology of Bronze Age Greece

The Bronze Age sites of Troy in Turkey, Knossos on Crete and Mycenae on the Greek mainland are steeped in myth. These were some of the places associated with the fabled Trojan War and its heroes, Agamemnon, Menelaus, Helen, Achilles and Hector of Homer’s Iliad fame, and the home of the Minotaur, the labyrinth of King Minos, and the hero Theseus. But they were also real, prehistoric places around which great societies grew. In this class, students will spend much of the semester investigating the artistic and archaeological remains of the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations of the Bronze Age, and their precursors (3000 to c. 1100 B.C.). We will look at the material culture from various sites (statuary, pottery, architecture, metal wares, etc.) and the interactions they had with other civilizations in the Eastern Mediterranean (Egypt, Anatolia, the Levant) and Mesopotamia. We will also try to piece together the reasons that these civilizations collapsed during the end of the 12th century B.C.Prerequisite for three-week, faculty-led summer course in Greece: Of Minoans and Mycenaeans.